


Blood Roses

by GlassParade



Category: Glee
Genre: Multi, Velvet Petals Piercing Thorns, historical fiction - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-01-27
Updated: 2013-03-08
Packaged: 2017-11-27 04:42:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/658118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GlassParade/pseuds/GlassParade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kurt and Blaine are happy in their French idyll, but back home in England, there are those who await their return with a malevolent eagerness, determined to bring the newly minted Earl of Kellsworth down. They have been through so much already - can their love, rooted in blood and espionage, survive the tests ahead? And more importantly...can they?</p>
<p>A sequel to the 2011 fic 'Velvet Petals, Piercing Thorns'.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ariedana](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ariedana/gifts).



> And for everyone who ever loved Amelia Freville.

~~oOo~~oOo~~oOo~~oOo~~oOo~~oOo~~oOo~~

The Wars of the Roses have been formally over for nearly a year, and Henry VII sits, for the most part, secure on his hard-won throne as the first Tudor monarch of England.

 

His wife and consort, Elizabeth of York, is mere weeks away from giving birth to a son they will call Arthur, the first of their many children who will form the world-changing Tudor dynasty. As they await the much-anticipated arrival, the realm over which they rule is calm, with no uprisings thus far to challenge Henry's claim. England, his counsellors tell him, is ravaged but recovering from the war that tore it in twain for so long.

 

Henry, in the Palace of Westminster, sleeps well. But what of those who put him on his throne?

 

What of his young cousin Edward Blaine Anderson, once Viscount Dalton, now styled Earl of Kellsworth? Blaine's efforts to rally his peers to the support of the Tudor cause were undoubtedly the linchpin in Henry's victory on Bosworth Field, but came at great personal cost. The loss of lifelong friend Amelia Freville weighed heavy on his heart even before he took to the field of battle; the carnage and destruction of Bosworth sent him fleeing to the Beaufort family château in France, where he has been for the last several months.

 

What of Kurt Hummel, the stableboy turned music tutor, pressed and exploited into the service of a Yorkist plot to ruin Blaine's efforts on behalf of the House of Lancaster? Against all odds and crossed stars, Kurt and Blaine found love in each other, only to be parted for long months when Blaine sent Kurt to France for safety in the violent days of war. Too, the loss of Amelia is Kurt's loss as well, and still does he wake screaming in the night with memories of taking the life of his tormentor and blackmailer, Jesse St. James.

 

They have found peace in their French idyll, but both know it is temporary, that the day must come when they return to England and face the wreckage left behind.

 

Much of that wreckage is centered at Crawford Keep, where the wound of Amelia's death is most strongly felt in the heart of the Freville family. Younger sister Elizabeth wanders the silent, tomblike corridors of their home, bereft of the only one of her five siblings to whom she felt even remotely close and feeling her spirit and shade in every corner. Elder sister Jane has been summoned home from the Tudor court at which she resides as a courtier, but her father has little time for her, spending long hours closeted instead with her husband Sebastian Smythe, the Earl of Berwick and member of the new King's Privy Council.

 

And then there is the Earl of Crawford himself, James Freville, once friend to the Anderson family and now embittered foe, still angry over the loss of his beloved daughter and feeling as though King Henry has failed to enact sufficient justice for it. 

 

The white rose of peace in the new Tudorian era will soon find its petals shorn and discarded, crumpled and stained with blood...but whose blood will it be?

 


	2. Chapter 2

~~oOo~~oOo~~oOo~~oOo~~oOo~~oOo~~oOo~~

 

**Chapter One**

 

_September, 1486_

 

_Steady hands, deep breaths. Concentrate on the task before you._

 

Smoke swirled through the massive stable, impairing Kurt's vision and making him cough. The good news was that it was just as much an impediment to the people who had trapped him up here, leaving him tied to a post in the hayloft while an inferno straight out of Hell's own heart raged below. He could hear the flames crackling through the dry straw, the terrified whinnies of horses trying to stampede out of the fire. 

 

He could hear Elizabeth's screams, horrible shrieks that brought to mind terrifying memories that he could never put far enough behind him. Memories of a streak of white lace and golden hair tumbling violently out of the door of Dalton's prison tower, his last sight of Amelia Freville alive. Her younger sister's screams of protest were what were freezing him in place now, trapped in reliving the night Amelia had died.

 

Wood creaked under Kurt's feet as the heat from the raging fire began to reach the floorboards of the hayloft, and it was this that jolted him out of his gruesome reverie, this and the smoke creeping into his lungs. His eyes focused through the gray fog on his hands tied before him, a knot that he could undo with his teeth if he could just hold his panic at bay long enough to concentrate.

 

And if he couldn't...

 

...he refused to consider failure as an option. Not with Elizabeth still in danger, not with Blaine at risk.

 

Pressing his face into his arm, Kurt took a deep breath through the filter of his voluminous shirt sleeve, one and then another slowly, trying to limit the amount of smoke he inhaled, until his head felt as clear as he thought it would get. Holding the last precious breaths in his lungs, Kurt leaned forward and applied his teeth to the rough rope, ignoring how it cut at his lips and drew blood.

 

He would get out of this. He would get out, and he would save Elizabeth and he would clear Blaine's name, and he would get answers for just how the hell all of them had gotten to this juncture in the first place.

 

If only they had never received Alice's letter. 

 

If only they could go back to where this had all begun...

 

 

_Two Months Earlier..._

 

“We've had messages.” Blaine stepped into the library, head down as he scanned the letter he'd received from his aunt Alice. “One from your fath – what on earth are you doing, Kurt?”

 

One round blue-green eye lazily opened and trained its gaze on Blaine. “I'm resting.”

 

Tilting his head, Blaine examined the tableau before him. “With no shirt or doublet on, and on the hearth?” It was a tempting picture, if somewhat nonsensical.

 

“It's hot.” Kurt didn't even bother to sit up. He lay reclined on the gray stones of the fireplace hearth, head pillowed by his crumpled up blue doublet and linen shirt. One long arm was flung over his forehead, the other tracing aimless patterns on the wooden floor. Clad only in a pair of blue hose and close fitting breeches, he was something of a mouthwatering sight to Blaine, who could only stand in the doorway, completely transfixed. “The hearthstones are cool and out of the sunlight. I pledge you, Blaine, the cook said she dropped an egg on the ground earlier and it cooked itself!”

 

Only the crumpling of the parchment in his tightening fist tore Blaine's thoughts away from the terrifically naughty place they'd gone. “I expect she was exaggerating,” he rasped out, taking deep breaths. Incredible how it had been well over a year and a half since they'd first met, and Kurt was still capable of reducing Blaine to a pile of stuttering lust simply by being his own delicious self. “Ah. Letters. Messages. Here. You -”

 

Grudgingly, Kurt sat up, opening both eyes and blinking until he could focus, a lopsided smile tilting up his mouth as he looked Blaine over. “Oh, my. Someone's enjoying the view. Shall I...tend to you, first?”

 

 _Yes, please_ , Blaine thought, and then squeezed his eyes shut, willing himself to get under control. “Would that we could, lover. But my letter is from Aunt Alice and yours is from your father and I feel that perhaps we should behave as responsible adults and tend to our familial correspondence first.”

 

He heard a sigh, and then the rustle of velvet on skin as Kurt picked up his doublet and slid it back on. “Very well.” Warm, soft lips pressed a kiss to Blaine's cheek and when he opened his eyes, it was to see Kurt smiling at him for just a moment before he brushed Blaine's nose with the tip of his own. He had not bothered with his shirt, nor with fastening the doublet. Blaine didn't much mind. “May I have mine, please?”

 

“In exchange for a kiss.” He'd never get enough of Kurt's kisses, and couldn't stop himself from smiling as their lips met in a chaste peck that quickly deepened into something that threatened to get entirely out of control rather swiftly. With great reluctance, Blaine slipped his hands up under Kurt's still unfastened doublet and pushed him gently away, handing him the letter from his father Burt as he did so. “Letters first.”

 

Kurt heaved another sigh, this one noisier and a touch more exasperated than the first. “Oh, if we must. I do enjoy hearing from my father.” He wandered over to a crimson brocaded chair and collapsed down into it, breaking the seal on his letter as he flung one long leg over the arm of the chair. Blaine moved out of the doorway at last, closing the door behind him and moving to make himself comfortable on the floor in front of Kurt's chair, picking up a cushion for sitting on his way over. By the time he settled in, leaning his head against Kurt's knee, Kurt was already making noises of disbelief over his letter.

 

Blaine knew that when Kurt was getting that agitated, he wasn't going to be able to speak coherently for some time, so there was no sense asking him about the contents of his letter now. Instead, Blaine broke the seal on his own letter and unfolded the parchment, blinking a bit at the shortness of the missive. He was used to Alice Beaufort writing pages and pages of news in her tidy, tiny hand, paragraphs of text on the health of Dalton's orchards, on how Emma seemed quite lost without Wes to feud with, even the weather was not too insignificant to mention. And of course no letter closed without a veiled, yet pointed request that he return home. Requests which he generally found easy to ignore – but a creeping chill up his spine told him it wasn't going to be easy at all, this time. Perhaps not even possible.

 

For before him, Alice's writing barely filled half the page, and there was a sloppy urgency blurring the lettering that he had never seen from his aunt in his life. Dread clogged his throat as he began to read.

 

_Dearest Nephew,_

 

_I hope this letter finds you as well as ever._

 

_I realize that you are used to much longer letters from me, and indeed I wish this were something more usual. Unfortunately, though I do have the usual reports of status, I must forgo them this time and come directly to the point: Edward, you really must come home._

 

_The most innocuous of reasons is that you are, of course, a cousin of His Grace the King. As you know, Queen Elizabeth is expecting their first child, and they are in high hopes that it will be a son. As the first scion of a new dynasty, this child will be so important, Edward. You, as a relative of the Royal Family, will be expected to make an appearance at court once he is born. They are expecting that the child should arrive within a handful of weeks, and so you do have some time, at least. But you cannot think to escape this obligation entirely._

 

_Unfortunately, the other reason I must insist on calling you home is one I dare not detail to you in a letter, for it could be intercepted - though I shall do my very best to ensure this gets to you safely. Suffice it to say, Edward, that you absolutely must return home now. The very future of Dalton and indeed of yourself may be at stake._

 

_Your loving aunt,_

 

_A. Beaufort_

 

Frowning, Blaine re-read the letter again, and a third time, looking for anything between the lines that might explain Alice's fears. But there was nothing, no coded message or surreptitious telling phrase that revealed the true source of Alice's summons. And that, in and of itself, was more ominous than any clear explanation could have been.

 

She was truly in fear of something. And the indomitable Lady Alice Beaufort, Baroness Linwood, was not a woman that scared easily, if at all.

 

Pushing down his unease, Blaine tilted his head up to look at Kurt, who still looked as though someone had smacked the back of his head with the pommel of a sword. Blaine twisted around and placed his hand on Kurt's knee. “Love?”

 

“My father...” Kurt shook his head, then the parchment, then laughed, throwing his head back to let loose a purely joyous peal of laughter that bounced around the stone room. “My father has remarried!”

 

“What?” Blaine had never met Burt Hummel, but he knew from Kurt's stories that the hardworking Austrian stableman of Raglan Castle was a widower who had deeply loved his English bride, and had been heartbroken when she had passed away in Kurt's childhood. He had never, according to Kurt, even looked at another woman since then. And now...married?

 

Well, that news was a great deal cheerier than his own. And so, in an effort to put off having to tell Kurt they would have to leave, Blaine fixed a smile onto his face and jostled his beloved's knee. “Well, tell! What of the woman who captivated Burt Hummel?”

 

“It's my music teacher.” Darkness touched on Kurt's eyes, and it had to be from the memory of being forced into the music lessons that had led him to Blaine in the first place. Still, that had not been the woman's doing – she had only been a teacher, and one he knew Kurt respected a very great deal – and so Blaine was unsurprised when the darkness was but a momentary flash, in the next instant clearing away and shifting back to joy at the news. “Mistress Corcoran. She writes all of my father's letters to me, as you know.”

 

Blaine nodded. “I see. And so love has grown out of the time they have spent together?” The smile that stretched across his face at this felt a good deal more genuine. “Well. You and I do know a thing or two about that.”

 

“So we do.” Kurt's mouth was still curved in a lovely sunlight smile as he leaned down to tug Blaine up to kneel so that they could kiss. The warmth and love of it stole Blaine's breath, spreading through his chest and nearly making him forget his more somber missive, at least until Kurt pulled back and sighed. “I wish I could see him.”

 

Inspiration twinkled at the back of Blaine's mind. He still didn't want to go home, especially not if misfortune awaited, but perhaps he could make leaving their idyllic refuge a bit less painful. Perhaps he need not tell Kurt of Alice's concerns until they were safely back in England. “We could,” he began slowly, crumpling the parchment in his hand. “If you like.”

 

A frown creased Kurt's smooth brow. “How do you mean?”

 

Blaine held up the crumpled letter. “Aunt Alice has called me home.”

 

A flash of surprise. “Again?” But of course Kurt wasn't stupid; Blaine could see immediately that he had guessed something was wrong. “What's happening? What's wrong?”

 

“Nothing.” Blaine opened up the letter again to show Kurt, worrying at his lower lip with his teeth. “The Queen is going to give birth somewhat soon. As family, I am expected to attend Court for the christening.”

 

“That's not what's putting that worry in your eyes.” Kurt's hand brushed the letter aside and moved to tilt Blaine's chin up, concern clear in his gaze. “It's only enough to account for the need to go home. Blaine, what's _wrong_?”

 

“I don't know,” Blaine admitted, knowing he had been foolish to think even for a moment that he could have hidden the ill tidings from Kurt. “Aunt Alice wouldn't say. Only that there was something wrong and that she feared saying more in case her letter was intercepted.” It felt as though an iron vise were squeezing his chest, filling him with foreboding and panic. “I can't imagine what could have gone so terribly wrong, Kurt. In...in her last letter she was talking about how the chickens all started hiding their nests and how Emma had an entire batch of strawberry jam that refused to set so they were eating strawberry sauce on everything for weeks...that was merely a month ago.”

 

Now he saw his fear mirrored on his lover's face, felt Kurt's fingers slip down to clutch at the front of Blaine's doublet. “Alice is never frightened of saying anything at all, ever.”

 

“Which may be the greatest portent of doom in the world.” Blaine tried to force out a laugh, to lighten the heavy air in the room, but knew they both heard it was a nervous laugh, a false cheer, and it did nothing. He closed his eyes and breathed in, slow and steady, willing himself to calm down. There was no sense in both of them getting upset when they knew virtually nothing. Better to turn their energies to things more uplifting. Swallowing hard, Blaine opened his eyes again and straightened up, pulling his shoulders back and locking gazes with Kurt. “We can't let it consume us now, though. There's too much to do. I think we need to speak to Wes, to begin organizing our passage home now, so that we can spend quite a number of days in Wales. I want you to visit your father and his new wife. Let us concentrate on that, on happy tidings, for now.”

 

A sigh lifted Kurt's shoulders and Blaine could see reluctance warring with elation in every line of his graceful body. “I do want to see my father. It's been so long.”

 

“Almost two years. Too long.” Turning, Blaine caught Kurt's hand and pressed a kiss into the palm. “I'm sorry. I should never have kept you here...we have been here for much too great a time.”

 

“But it has been a good time,” Kurt countered wistfully, sliding his hand around to cup Blaine's jawline. “A time needed, though I resented you sending me away at first.”

 

“I resented being away from you.” Blaine leaned into Kurt's hand and lay his own over the back of it, curling his fingers around the strong, fine bones and smooth skin that he so loved. “I don't entirely wish this to end, Kurt. I have my duties, my obligations, and you know everything must change when we go home.”

 

Kurt cast aside the letter in his other hand and reached out to grab a fistful of Blaine's dark green doublet, moving forward in his chair as he pulled Blaine to nestle in between his strong thighs. “I remember. Your duties, your obligations, they will always take you from me,” he breathed, dipping his head to claim Blaine's mouth in a heated kiss. His fingers tangled in Blaine's curls, the tight ache dragging a groan out of Blaine's chest that slipped hot over his tongue and filled Kurt's mouth. It seemed in an instant all fear was burned away with the heat of the desire that always simmered between them. “And even if they didn't...”

 

“We won't have the freedom there that we do here.” The ache of premature loss filled Blaine's heart and made it hurt. Still, he resolutely shoved it aside in favor of memorizing the slip of Kurt's tongue alongside his own, the rasp of breath through Kurt's nose, the feel of Kurt's thighs under his palms. They would just have to spend as much time together as they could now, to offset the pain of the forced distance they faced. “I love you so much,” he mumbled against Kurt's lips. “So much. Too much.”

 

“Show me,” was Kurt's reply as he grabbed Blaine's hand and slid it under his open doublet, against the bare skin of his chest and the strong, steady thump of his heart. “Show me all, in the time left.”

 

 _Before everything changes_ , taunted one last dark premonition in Blaine's mind before he gave over entirely to desire, and to Kurt, and to his love.

 

* * *

James Freville, Earl of Crawford, was a man who had fought and clawed his way to where he stood this day.   
  
Born as the eldest son of the Duke of Sheldrake, he should rightfully have inherited the title upon his father's death. Had indeed expected it; they all had. He had been raised to it and his marriage to the pretty, golden-haired daughter of the Marquess of Faredale had been contingent on it.

 

But when James was eighteen and newly wed, Robert Freville passed away after being thrown from his horse and cracking his skull open. To their surprise, the only just crowned King Edward IV had declared the Dukedom of Sheldrake extinct and had claimed the lands for his embattled throne. Left with a new wife and soon after that the first of six daughters, James found himself shocked, humiliated, and nearly penniless, with only a minor baronetcy left to his name.

  
Ambition had driven him into the King's service, then, determined to earn a lands and a title of his own, to support his rapidly growing family. He battled hard alongside the very king who had humiliated him so, earned titles and accolades and land, and he did not grieve when Edward died.

 

When the opportunity for a final revenge arose, James threw his lot in with the House of Lancaster, helping to bring down the last scion of the House of York, cementing his place in England's nobility and burying the last of his burning humiliation deep in the blood-soaked ground of Bosworth Field.  
  
Yes, James Freville had worked hard for what he now claimed as his own.  
  
And so he had little respect for the young man before him, twenty-two and also an Earl, but only by the merest chance of fate and through no work of his own. It was difficult for James to prevent his mouth from twisting up into a scowl. 

 

“Have some wine,” he advised his daughter's all but useless husband as he passed the pitcher across the table, fighting to control the impulse to douse the boy with the contents of it instead. “We've just imported it from France. Marvelous stuff.”

 

“Thank you.” Somehow, Sebastian managed to insert the barest trace of insolence into the polite response. “I hope it can measure up to the excellent English vintage that Jane and I had the good fortune to taste recently at one of His Grace the King's banquets.”

 

 _Insufferable, jumped-up lackwit_ , James seethed, forcing as amiable a smile as he could manage onto his face. “Well, we can but hope,” he replied, hoping the blandness of his tone suitably masked his utter contempt.

 

Sebastian Smythe represented everything James Freville loathed, an opportunist and scoundrel who had everything handed to him on plates of gold and silver. When Sebastian's father Randolph, the Earl of Berwick, had approached with an offer to marry his second son to James' second daughter Jane, Crawford's first instinct had been to immediately refuse. His daughters were renowned for their beauty, their uncommonly thorough educations, and their perfect manners. And Jane out of all of them had been unusually sharp, her mind and temperament excellently suited for a very good marriage, one that promised much time spent at court. She deserved to marry into a title, not simply into a titled family. 

 

And she certainly deserved better than what James had heard of the spoiled and lazy Sebastian, who seemed little better than a promiscuous rake and ne'er do well. After all, her elder sister Mary had been wed to the eldest son of the Earl of Kendal. In time, she would be a Countess. If Jane were wed to Sebastian, she would never be that, nor anything close to it, for the young man seemingly had no ambition beyond spending as much of his father's money as he could get his hands on.

 

But the Earl of Berwick had persisted, being a man accustomed to getting what he wanted. What he wanted was for his son to have an accomplished, clever wife from a notable family, he explained, someone who could, as a bonus, perhaps be a maturing influence on Sebastian. And so he had invited James to a masked ball and asked him to bring his daughters.

 

When Jane had met Sebastian that night, it was all over. She immediately wanted Sebastian, and was determined to have him, and James Freville found himself on the receiving end of the formidable intellect he had fostered in his daughter. Jane never cried, and never begged. She simply persisted, presenting reasonable arguments and an unwavering certainty that this was what she wanted and what she intended to have. James had to admire his spirited offspring, even as she drove him mad.

 

Jane would have what Jane wanted, and so at the tender age of sixteen, Lady Jane Freville was married to Lord Sebastian Smythe. James reasoned that he did not have to like his daughter's husbands, only to enjoy the benefits of being linked with other powerful families, and it had to be admitted that the Smythes were certainly powerful. Besides, Jane, for whatever reason, loved Sebastian. James resolved to make the best of the situation. After all, he had four remaining unmarried daughters.

 

No one could have foreseen that he would lose one of them. Lovely, funny, sweet Amelia, the next to be married, hopefully more advantageously than Jane. When it became clear that war was on the horizon, James had placed her in the care of Edward Anderson, trusting in the young Viscount's promise to keep her safe, for why should he not have done? Edward loved Amelia like a sister. Beyond that, he was fierce and loyal and intelligent. He had been selected to lead the lesser nobles in the battle that would ultimately unseat Richard III for all these reasons and more.

 

But Edward had failed in his promise to protect Amelia, and now she was gone, dead, the innocent victim of a conspiracy that had targeted the young Viscount Dalton, a conspiracy that for some reason Edward had never seen coming. Amelia had suffered for that shortsightedness.

 

Even less foreseeable had been that Randolph Smythe would lose his life at Bosworth Field. And his heir Stephen would reign as the new Earl of Berwick for all of three days before he succumbed to the traumatic head wound that had toppled him from his mount.

 

All unanticipated, the young, spoiled, feckless Sebastian became the Earl of Berwick in one fell swoop. James reeled from the shock of it – Amelia gone, but Jane elevated to an unexpected title. It was a bittersweet moment, one he found difficult to manage.

 

And then, out of some misplaced sense of guilt, Henry had granted Sebastian the place on the Privy Council that would have been his father's, an honor the King had never accorded James. Further, instead of penalizing Edward Anderson for his complicity in Amelia's death, Henry had given his young cousin the Earldom of Kellsworth in recognition of his work coordinating his peers amongst the lesser nobles to support the Lancastrian fight for the throne of England. 

 

Sebastian and Edward had been elevated, not James Freville. James, who had come up with the notion of organizing the lesser nobles and rallying them in support of Henry in the first place. James, who had defended Henry on the field and suffered the most grievous wounds of his long war career. James, who had lost a daughter as a consequence of these war games. James, who had been all but forgotten in the aftermath of the end of the war.

 

It was an insult that cut deep, that the two young men be handed everything after all James' hard work and planning and blood spilt. He felt as though he had been slapped in the face, that all of his own hard work throughout his life was meaningless, for no matter how hard he fought and worked, others would be promoted above him. Salt in the wound had been the monetary compensation from the Earl of Huntingdon who had orchestrated the conspiracy that resulted in Amelia's violent death. 

 

As if money could replace his poor darling. But at least Huntingdon had suffered some penalty for his perfidy. Edward Anderson's horrific lack of attention had merited no such punishment.

 

“My Lord?” Sebastian's mock deference broke through the murky fog of James' thoughts, disrupting the blackness and barely suppressed rage of a thwarted man. “My Lord, I expect you had a reason to call me into your company this day, did you not?”

 

James shook his head to rouse himself to awareness. “Yes, actually. I did.” _And such a reason it is_ , he thought, allowing the smallest smile of triumph to cross his lips.  
  
For if nothing else, James Freville was a pragmatic man. Sebastian's placement meant Jane too was indeed elevated, was in fact a lady in waiting to the new Queen Elizabeth. Jane, who had already been a darling of the court on her infrequent visits, was now an influential courtier, lauded for her gracious manners and impeccable dress, respected by everyone she charmed with her pretty smile and perfect carriage. The accidental Countess was fulfilling the promise of her unexpectedly advantageous marriage with aplomb, exactly as she had been raised to do.

 

It was now time to capitalize on that. Now was the time to use the tool that fate had placed before the Earl of Crawford, his loathed but excellently placed son-in-law and his lovely, highly regarded daughter. To wield them against a greater foe.

 

“My young Lord Berwick,” James Freville began, steepling his fingers before his face and resting his elbows on his desk. “Have you ever had the occasion to meet with my neighbor, the Earl of Kellsworth?”


	3. Chapter 3

The hourglass had been turned twice before Sebastian was permitted to depart his father-in-law's company, and it was with difficulty that he made his way out of the older man's sight without collapsing in hysterical laughter, all but stumbling through the corridors of Crawford Keep to get to the chambers he and Jane had been accorded for their stay. Only vaguely did he notice the servants casting him odd looks, but he didn't care. Not after what he'd just heard.

 

 _It's just a visit home_ , Jane had said. _I'm sure it's nothing. We shall be back at court in no time._

 

Well. It was not, as it turned out, nothing. They'd been here for nearly an entire month, both of them deprived of courtly fun and intrigue and their respective lovers, made to wait for Lord Crawford to explain why he'd demanded their presence at the Keep. And now that he had, Sebastian quite heartily wished that he _hadn't_.

 

Mercifully, it did not take long to locate his rooms, Sebastian slammed through the door to the chamber with an almighty bang, causing his wife to look up from her embroidery, an expression of bland disinterest fixed on her pretty face. “You're not my sister,” she stated, raising one delicate eyebrow. “I was expecting Lizzie.”

 

“Forget your sister.” Stalking across the sitting room, Sebastian snatched up the pitcher of wine on the table before the fireplace. He poured himself a large goblet full, taking a long draught off of it and refilling it before he felt calm enough to speak reasonably, without laughter. “Your father is utterly and completely mad,” he informed Jane, flinging himself recklessly down into one of the golden velvet chairs that flanked the table. “Tell me, sweetheart, did he give you any indication of what he invited us down here to discuss when he sent you that letter?”  
  
Jane stared at him for a moment in surprise before finally shaking her head. “Not a breath of a hint,” she replied, returning her focus to the snowy linen in her hands. Her quick, sure fingers moved swiftly to pull a needle threaded with blood red silk through the fabric. “Remove your boots if you're in for the evening. And I will thank you to not talk of my father that way, 'Bastian. Did he tell you when we can return home?”  
  
He ignored the question, which she had been asking at least once a day since they arrived. “He wants you and I to spearhead a whisper campaign against that Lord Kellsworth at Dalton.” Sebastian shook his head and sucked down another long swallow of the sweet red wine before attending to his boots, dropping them beside his chair. “The one that got your other sister killed. What was her name...Amelia?”  
  
“Amelia, yes. And her dear, darling, useless, beloved Edward.” Setting aside the thread and fabric, Jane swept up to her feet and across the room, gracefully taking the other chair and casting him a significant look. After seven years of marriage, Sebastian easily recognized the cue for him to pick up the pitcher of wine and pour out a cup for her as well. “So Papa has finally decided to move against that pathetic excuse of a 'protector'. Good. I approve.”  
  
At these words, Sebastian stared at his wife with no small amount of incredulity, nearly spilling the wine he was in the middle of pouring. “Does insanity run in your family?” Shoving the cup across the table, heedless of the droplets that splashed out and landed in crimson splotches on the linen table covering, Sebastian sat back and had to take a moment to assemble his thoughts into something resembling coherence. “I'm a member of the Privy Council, Jane, I can't be caught spreading rumors about the King's cousin!” He might never have asked for his position, but by God, he had it, and he intended to keep it. Not through any sense of responsibility or loyalty to the King, no. The power and prestige he had now couldn't be bought and wasn't a commodity to be squandered. Especially not for his wife's father, who had never, in seven years, succeeded in concealing from Sebastian the fact that Lord Crawford strongly detested him.

 

Jane waved her hand dismissively at him, picking up her wine goblet. “So we won't be caught.”

 

“Oh, it's that simple, is it?” Sebastian snorted. “All right, then. What about the fact that I don't really know anything about the man that I can use against him? I've never even met him.” He closed his eyes, smacking his head against the padded back of his chair. “Your father just told me to 'think of something'. Why doesn't he just have me poisoned now? We both know he despises me, but it's just cruel to put me through this slow agony that will inevitably lead to death. And anyway, why should I -”  
  
“Idiot.” At Jane's scathing interruption, Sebastian turned his head and opened his eyes to see she was rolling her eyes in contempt, clearly having lost patience with him. Well, that was not terribly surprising. “By God, how heartily do I resent that the only reason my father initiated this conversation with you and not me is because you were born with a cock?”

 

He couldn't help but let a startled bark of laughter out at that. “Come again?”

 

Sitting back, Jane tossed her golden brown curls back over her shoulders and huffed in annoyance. “Oh, 'Bastian. Isn't it just _terrible_ that you're not married to a woman who knows things about Edward Anderson and is well placed to help you spread just the most _awful_ rumors about him? Oh, no, but wait, you _are._ ”  
  
Jane's tendency to be an insufferable bitch was often entertaining to Sebastian, at least until she turned it on him. He took a deep breath. “Jane. Your penchant for mystery is not without its irritations even in the best of times.”  
  
“Well, love, you see...” He watched as Jane cast down her gaze and ran her finger around the edge of her goblet. “Edward – well, Blaine, as he _will_ so oddly insist on being called - was only darling Amelia's very closest friend, you see. He was always underfoot here, even after you and I were married I saw him quite often when I would come visit.” Contempt faded from Jane's delicate features, replaced by a lightly mocking innocence as she tilted her head and appeared to be considering him. “I always thought it so very strange that he never wanted to marry my sister. And that he always seemed to be in the company of that common valet of his.”  
  
That made Sebastian sit up. “Explain.” He thought he understood, but...  
  
“Mm.” Jane's cheeks were flushed pink, and he knew it was as much from pride that she knew something he didn't as it was from the wine. “I mean, my darling husband, that I'm quite certain my father's favorite neighbor is as cockhungry as you.”

 

Ah.

 

Sebastian's proclivities had never been a secret in their marriage. In fact, it was _why_ they were married. Jane had been wandering through the Smythe estate at Berwick, bored with the masked ball Sebastian's father had thrown as a means to introduce his son to the Earl of Crawford's daughter. Her inadvertent discovery of Sebastian balls-deep in one of the hired musicians had been one hell of a shock for all of them.

 

But not so much of a shock that she hadn't immediately leveraged it to her advantage. For reasons Sebastian would never understand, Jane had wanted him as soon as she'd seen him. He was a title-less second son and a proven sodomite, but she wanted him all the same. And as he came quickly to understand, what Lady Jane Freville wanted, she would have.

 

So she'd blackmailed him into agreeing to marry her, and then she'd strong-armed her father into making it happen. Under any other circumstance, Sebastian would hate anyone who had done to him what Jane did, but oddly, he respected it from her. Not only was she the first person he'd met who was as ruthless at self-promotion and satisfaction as he, she was a woman. That demanded a double dose of respect, as far as he was concerned.

 

In time, respect grew to a strong affection, and through their shared interests and compatible personalities, they made their odd marriage work.

 

And as far as bedding went, well. They each had their lovers, they sometimes engaged in intercourse with each other, and very occasionally they combined the two pastimes into one delightful romp. It was a more than satisfying arrangement, and no one important at court suspected they had anything but the ideal happy marriage. Nor should it be suspected; it was, after all, fairly true, and the absolute perfect cover.

 

He wondered why, if the buggery rumor about the Earl of Kellsworth was true, the man hadn't arranged the same sort of cover for himself. Surely he _could_ have married Amelia and managed _something_? It was curious, indeed. If, in fact, it were true. Sebastian glanced at his wife. “Why are you so certain?”

“The difference between you and Edward is that he's laughably less subtle about it,” Jane went on, with a contemptuous giggle at the absent Earl's expense. “Can you think of another reason why, after my sister's death, he joined her music instructor in France and has been there alone with the man for nearly a year?” She batted her eyelashes. “I'm sure he thinks he's being quite covert about it, but if one knows what to look for – and as your wife, I of all people know better than most – then the signs are all there.”  
  
“They could be friends,” he ventured. It was, after all, part of his own strategy for surviving at court, something he worked very hard at making people believe. Sebastian spent as much time cultivating a facade of perfect courtly masculinity as he did balls deep in handsome valets and musicians himself. “By all accounts Anderson is a decent fellow.”  
  
“Yes. A decent fellow with a healthy craving for the taste of men.” Filthy words never would stop being a surprise coming from Jane's sweet pink lips. Face of an angel, present at Mass every Sabbath, generous to the poor, and a mouth that could make a pirate blush. The contradiction of Jane's outward and inward natures was part of what kept Sebastian fascinated by her, even despite the fact that she was a woman. “Can you imagine what the King would say if he knew?”  
  
Sebastian had a fairly good idea, yes. The devout and conservative Henry Tudor was notoriously disdainful of men with a penchant for buggery. To know that the cousin who had been instrumental in helping him claim his throne was amongst those who, in Henry's eyes, sinned against God, would probably not go over well. At all. It was why Sebastian himself was so very circumspect. Not for the first time, Sebastian blessed his clever and accommodating wife. However - “We shouldn't really move without proof, Jane,” he cautioned. “We cannot -”  
  
“Oh, but we can,” she assured him. “In that court, with all of the upheaval surrounding the birth of the heir, all that pent up perversion and backbiting because everyone wants to stay on Henry's good side? A rumor is as good as the truth. And if we are very careful, no one need ever know it came from us.” She opened her eyes wide and pouted at him. “Please, Sebastian. Do trust me. Tell Papa you'll do it. He's not the same since Amelia passed.” In a rare moment of vulnerability, her voice took on a hint of pleading. “He's so unhappy and bitter. If there's even a faint chance this will bring the Papa back that I love...”

 

Her softness was a surprise. “Darling. Truly, this is how you feel?”

 

“Well...” And then Jane's vulnerability was gone as quickly as it had come, replaced with a hopeful mischievousness. “I _so_ want to go back to court. I was just breaking in my new toy. It was going terribly well.”  
  
Ah. Of course. And here was the true root of Jane's eagerness to cement a plan and return to London with haste. As much as she loved her family and as much as intrigue was one of her favorite pastimes, sex would always be Jane's true motivating force, the compass that guided her through life. “Was it, now. Who is it?” Sebastian poured her another goblet of wine. “Anyone I know?”  
  
“The newcome Gentleman of the Privy Chamber - Clarington.” Jane sat up straighter and picked up the fresh wine, her blue eyes twinkling over the rim of the cup as she raised it to her lips.  
  
She did have exquisite taste in her own lovers; as good as his own. “Mm. Pretty. Had my eye on him myself.”  
  
“I know. I saw you watching him at the last masque.” Setting the cup back down, she got up and moved to stand behind him, leaning down and looping her arms around his neck. “If you’re quite nice to me, and if you help my father, I may be persuaded to…share. Perhaps.”  
  
Sebastian turned his head to gaze skeptically at his wife, whose face was lit up in a deceptively beatific smile. Jane had frequently made such offers, and he had just as frequently taken her up on them. But he rather felt this time she was aiming somewhat too highly, asking him to take too much risk for a return he wasn't sure at all was a guarantee. “I’d heard he wasn’t even slightly interested in men.”  
  
Jane sighed. “Oh, ‘Bastian. You of all people should know better.” The tip of her tongue flicked out and traced the outer rim of his ear, making him shiver. “I always get whatever it is that I want.” She edged around to his side and let one hand trail down the front of his doublet, unfastening it as she went along and pressing herself closer so that she could reach down lower. "He'd do anything for me, anything at all that I ask.” Her fingers slipped down his chest, dancing along the velvet, skipping over the fastenings and decorative trim. “I can give him to you - well, I can share him, if you just do one little favor for my Papa? A favor that could at last send us back to London?”  
  
Her intent was unmistakable, her tone wistful. "Darling Jane. Are you truly so very bored?"  
  
"You know that I am. Please, _did_ my father say we can return to London?"  
  
"He hasn't said, not yet. I think he wants to finalize a plan, and so you and I will need to devise..." Reaching down, he caught her hand as slid over his thigh and crept closer to his groin. Clearly, she wished to dispense with the conversation for now, yet he was unsure he was in the mood for it to turn to this. " _Jane_."  
  
Her rosebud mouth pursed sulkily. "Sebastian. There's no sense continuing on, you see clearly there's no way for us to get back to London unless you cooperate with my father. I've offered you considerable incentive to do so. You know as well as I do that you'll accept.”

 

Sebastian raised an eyebrow, and tightened his grip on her small hand. “Do I?”

 

“Of course you do,” she retorted, rolling her lovely blue eyes skyward. “Don't let's fight, love. There are more important things now at hand.”

 

“Such as your sexual appetite, I suppose.” He'd laugh if Jane weren't so impressively libidinous. She hadn't been with nearly as many men as he himself had, but by god if they didn't all bemoan their inability to keep up with her when they had no idea Sebastian was listening in on their conversations. “Come now, Jane, surely it isn't as dire as this?”

 

“There's been no one in too long,” she sighed in complaint, trying in vain to wiggle her fingers free of his grasp. “And it isn't as if you've been able to find anyone either. There's no one here at Crawford who suits your standards, darling, I know. So you're bored and I'm bored..." Jane trailed off, licking her lips suggestively. "We have only each other, my love. Please, darling.”

 

Still he attempted to stall or divert her. “Did you not say earlier that you were expecting your sister this evening?”

 

“ _Sebastian_.” Her voice, while still sweet, grew cold, like a lake in deep winter. “Lizzie doesn't matter. _I_ matter. What I _want_ matters. It's been well over a month and you know that's far too long."

 

Sebastian suppressed a sigh, releasing her hand. He did know that, and Jane was much easier to deal with when she was satisfied. Besides, it was not as if their time together lacked enjoyment entirely. And he did not wish to think just now about the dilemma of what her father was asking him to do. Sebastian enjoyed a good round of destroying a person's reputation, he always had, but these were rather higher stakes...

 

Thus distracted, he did not stop Jane when she dropped to her knees before him, easing his breeches and hose down his legs until he was in nothing more than his open doublet and loose shirt. Jane's hands wandered up his thighs and he caught a glimpse of her smile before she bent her head and took the soft limpness of his manhood into her mouth.  
  
Fellatio was one of Jane's more exceptional talents, and if he closed his eyes and relaxed, he could pretend that the tongue and lips that so expertly caressed his shaft and stirred it to erectness were those of his latest lover, a talented young baritone from the royal choir with lovely brown eyes and a cock like a stallion. The young man even had hair that was similar to Jane's, a cap of silky golden brown curls, so that when Sebastian slid his fingers through her hair and around to cup the back of his wife's head, he could sink deeper into his fantasy and let out a groan as she redoubled her efforts, sucking until he felt near to exploding, he was so swollen and hard.  
  
Jane pulled back just as he was nearing his peak, collecting every pearly drop of seed that was gathered at the tip of his shaft with a thorough lick, and cast a wicked smile up at him. Sebastian could only sit, aching, furious, and on the edge of climax as she got to her feet in a motion like liquid and untied the sash of her dressing gown, allowing it to slide off of her slender frame and puddle onto the floor.  
  
Tilting her delicate chin high into the air, Jane paraded naked to the bed, crawling up onto the large feather mattress to position herself on all fours, pert buttocks in the air, knees spread wide. "Don't look so shocked, darling. It's not as if I don't know how you like it." She winked one bright eye. “Don't forget to pull out this time. We wouldn't want any little accidents, would we?”

 

* * *

Elizabeth stood frozen outside of her sister's chambers, cheeks flaming hot and, she knew, quite as red as her dress at the sounds coming from behind the glossy oak doors.

 

It appeared that Jane was somewhat too preoccupied for their intended sewing session. Lovely.

 

Gathering her skirts up, Elizabeth backed as carefully and quietly away from the chamber doors as possible. Not that there was much of a point to that, she considered wryly, casting a glance back over her shoulder at a particularly ecstatic shriek from her sister. No one would hear her over the commotion Jane and her husband were making. Elizabeth put a hand to her cheek at the thought, willing it to cool down before she ran into anyone. She wouldn't want people to think she was _eavesdropping_.

 

Especially on _that_. Her cheeks flushed hotter, rather than cooling down, at the memory of Jane's ecstatic cries. _Jane certainly seems to enjoy being married_.

 

The blood rush to her cheeks at that thought made her dizzy, and Elizabeth nearly fell over right there in the corridor. Letting go of her skirts, she stopped to reach out and place a hand on the cool stone wall to brace herself for just a moment before forcing herself to move on. _Such thoughts are not ladylike, Elizabeth_ , she chided herself, clutching her workbasket closer to her chest, ignoring her quickened breath and shoving the impure musings to the very back of her mind.

 

She moved quickly, but with purpose as she made her way back to her chambers, attempting to put off an air of nonchalance to hide her chagrin. She really should have known better than to think Jane truly would have had time for her this evening. Something always came up, always. Jane was tired. Jane was writing letters. Jane was...well. Jane was Jane. Jane, who had never had time for Elizabeth when she lived at home, so Elizabeth had no idea why she'd thought things would change now.

 

No, that wasn't strictly true. _It is only that I miss Amelia_ , she thought, biting at her lip to try and not cry. _Oh, how she would laugh to hear that, and harder to think I was trying to replace her with Jane of all people._

 

Amelia would never have found excuses to avoid Elizabeth. In fact it had so often been the other way around, Amelia trying to coax Elizabeth into helping her with embroidery or mending or decorating the keep for Yuletide. And always, Elizabeth had found ways out of it, preferring to primp and preen in front of her looking-glass or to play cards with their mother.

 

 _I would not turn you away now, Amelia_. Blinking back the tears that threatened to spill, Elizabeth almost wanted to laugh at herself, at the irony of it all. One more day with Amelia and Elizabeth would gladly hem nose-cloths and embroider twining vines of golden thread on dresses and corset covers, anything to snatch a few last moments with the only sister who'd liked her.

 

How self-absorbed she had been, how selfish and terrible. Always thinking that there would be time later. That there were more important things such as parties, or handsome young men, or pretty dresses.

 

Now that Amelia was gone, Elizabeth saw with bitterness that nothing was more important than her family, but it felt as though she were the only one who thought as such, for all the effort anyone made to converse or even silently acknowledge anyone else in the keep. She rather thought the servants might well be more aware of her presence than her sister or her mother and father were.

 

Without Amelia singing around seemingly every corner, without her workbaskets and books left everywhere, without the tinkling of her harpsichord...life at Crawford Keep was very quiet and very sad. Elizabeth had been home for a mere handful of days, but already she wished her Papa had not called her away from her aunt's home in the north, not to come back to a keep as silent as a grave. Not to be without even the inconsequential chattering company of her younger sisters. Not to see indifferent, self-absorbed Jane instead of Amelia. Not to see their mother, who no longer wished to play cards but instead kept to her own chambers, never really speaking to anyone. Not to see her Papa with a perpetually thunderous face and not at all the loving father Elizabeth remembered.

 

It was nearly enough to make her want to run away. Instead, she immersed herself in Amelia's left-behind volumes of poetry, imagining herself in long ago times and far away fancies. She tried – and failed – to make sense of the sheets and books of music in the library, to pluck any sort of melody out of Amelia's abandoned harpsichord. Her own workbaskets were now filled with half-finished embroidery projects that Amelia had apparently not seen fit to take along with her to Dalton Manor. Everything Elizabeth did now was dusted over with fading memories of a girl she'd had next to no time for when Amelia had still been breathing.

 

But she could do nothing else. She sought any connection she could from the dead, since the living seemed not much to care about her at all. Elizabeth knew not whether she wished to hole herself up in the music library forever, wrapped in memories of her dead sister, or if she wanted to escape this home that had become as suffocating as any tomb, to run in any direction that never, ever led her back here.

 

“Lizzie.”

 

The stern summons of her father – along with the detested childhood nickname - startled Elizabeth out of the grim, desperate spiral of her thoughts. She hadn't even realized she was passing his study. “Papa. Good evening.”

 

“And to you.” With effort, Lord Crawford got to his feet and moved to the doorway, the limp from the vicious wound he'd suffered in battle hardly visible now – though Elizabeth knew he took great pains to conceal it more than it had healed. The pain it cost him to do so was sharply etched into every line in his solemn face. “But I thought you were to be with Jane this night?”

 

Elizabeth felt her shoulders tense against the velvet of her gown. “She has...” Blood rushed again to her cheeks at the memory of what she'd heard. “That is to say, when I approached their chambers, I found that Jane and her husband had retired for the evening.”

 

Lord Crawford's mouth twitched to the side in a knowing smile for an instant, and in that instant, Elizabeth saw the Papa she had grown up with, the Papa who had not been so sad and wounded. “My little diplomat,” he intoned with fondness, reaching forward to touch a curl that had fallen over Elizabeth's shoulder. “You need not be more clear. I see that Jane has once again eschewed your company.” His sigh was rueful, one Elizabeth had heard so many times in her childhood when Lord Crawford had tried to mediate the many storms and trials of his many daughters. “I must offer my apologies. Had I been more thoughtful, I would have kept Lord Berwick in here a bit longer so that she had not the excuse.”

 

Looking down, Elizabeth as careless a shrug as she could muster. She fixed her gaze on the toes of her slippers, vaguely noticing a section of beading that was loosening itself from the satin. “It is not Jane's duty to entertain me. She is a courtier now, she has many things more important, I am sure, than to waste any of her time with me.” It was difficult to strangle back the bitter laugh that rose in her throat at that. Surely Amelia had once said the same thing about her. She could very nearly hear it. “So many years separate Jane and I -”

 

“There is nothing more important than family,” Lord Crawford interrupted with a scowl, and again Elizabeth bit back hysteria, for surely if he felt such, he would not have been ignoring her as much as Jane had been?

 

Her father went on, voice simmering with an underlying anger that grew as he spoke. “Jane would do well to remember that.” And again there was the new, frightening Papa, the one like a slow burning fire that Elizabeth could neither quite understand or determine how to stifle. “She – but never mind. Lizzie, darling.” Then with quicksilver changeability, here again was the Papa who taught them all to ride ponies and carried them giggling through the keep. “You know of course that your Papa loves you. Yes?”

 

The question seemed quite out of nowhere, the mood change more alarming than the anger that preceded it. Elizabeth raised her chin and forced herself to smile, ever the obedient daughter. “Of course, Papa.”

 

He twined her hair around fingers rough with work and war, eyes looking far off into the distance. “And you do know better than Jane, I hope, that nothing is more important than family?”

 

It was so difficult to keep up with his constantly changing moods. Elizabeth felt as though the ground were always shifting under her feet, that she were constantly trying not to topple over as her father went from loving to sinister and back again and again. She focused again on the loosening beading on her slipper, seeking to ground herself in any mundane detail. This question she could answer with honesty. “I do try to remember that, Papa.”

 

How could she not? The lesson had been written in her sister's blood.

 

Papa was still speaking. “I know you are confused as to why I summoned you home and not Abigail or Katherine.” When Elizabeth looked up, Lord Crawford's blue eyes, the blue eyes he'd passed on to every one of his daughters, were dark and murky with things she couldn't begin to comprehend, though she desperately wished she had even a hint. “And I am sorry I've had to bring you here with no explanation, that you've had to be so lonely.”

 

“I'm sure you had your reasons, Papa.” Again, she tried hard to smile, to be good and dutiful and to try with all she had to brighten his mood. _If I am good, if I work hard, will he stay my Papa, will he return to us forever and never again be this angry man I do not know?_ “Please, worry not. I have my sewing, I have my books. And you have always brought us up to be resilient and strong and...and to handle to the best of our abilities all that life has to hand us.” She placed a hand on his arm and patted it, trying to impart all the brightness she could into her eyes, trying to clear the storm clouds from his face. “I know you will make all clear in time, and in the meantime, I will make the best of things.” Indeed, what else _could_ she do? Unlike Jane and Mary, she had no husband. Unlike Abigail and Katherine, she was not kept busy with learning the womanly duties that would _win_ her a husband.

 

Yet unlike Amelia, she was alive. That was, she reflected with a touch of sadness, something of an advantage. Elizabeth swallowed back the iron lump that always seemed to come up whenever she thought of her sister. It had been a year and more. Would it ever stop hurting? For an instant she could see why Papa was so angry all of the time. It was what he felt instead of sad. Or perhaps he was angry _because_ of the sadness.

 

A callus on her father's war roughened hand snagged her hair and tugged it, catching her attention. When she focused on him again, he was smiling. “As you always do,” he murmured, tugging again on the curl, deliberately this time. And there again in an instant was the old, fond Papa, still smiling as he dropped his hand away from her hair and took a step back. “You are a good girl, Lizzie.”

 

She didn't at all have the heart to correct him away from using the childish nickname she'd forbidden anyone else to use for the last year. If anyone deserved to call her whatever he chose, it was her Papa. In the end, Elizabeth knew that she would always do anything he asked, would cheerfully put up with being ignored much of the time, would do whatever was required of her if it would be helpful at all. “I always wish to be whatever will make you happy.”

 

Lord Crawford's face darkened as he backed into his study. Elizabeth watched his stubbled throat shift as he swallowed hard before he answered her, his voice raspy and edged with that fiery rage. “Alive,” he finally responded, hand clenching into a white knuckled fist. “That would make me happy, Elizabeth, that you remain alive.”

 

With that, he closed the door, slotting the bar that secured it into place with a decisive thud.

 

Elizabeth swallowed hard at that final shift back into darkness, placing a hand over her stomach that so suddenly felt as though it were full of shards of ice. The ground felt now less as though it were shifting sands under her feet as it was a frozen lake cracking in early spring.

 

And Elizabeth Freville had never been taught to swim.

**Author's Note:**

> Much love to Tina and Riah, two of the most thorough betas on either side of the Pecos.


End file.
